European stocks fell from a six month-high this past week, as Greece’s coalition government failed to agree on the remaining spending cuts needed to obtain financial aid from the EU and stave off a default.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index fell 1.3 percent to 261.24 this week, retreating from its highest level since July 29. The benchmark measure has still rallied 22 percent from its two-year low on Sept. 22 and 6.8 percent from the start of this year as the European Central Bank (ECB) lent 489 billion euros (US$645 billion) to banks and investors speculated that the currency area would contain its sovereign-debt crisis.
European stocks dropped 0.9 percent on Friday as George Karatzaferis, who heads one of the three parties supporting Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’ government, said he would not vote for the austerity measures needed to get additional rescue funds from the EU.
Fifteen of the 19 industry groups in the STOXX 600 declined this past week, with mining companies dropping the most. The IMF said the euro area’s debt crisis would cut China’s economic expansion almost in half if it worsens. Based on the IMF’s “downside” forecast for the global economy, China’s growth would drop by as much as 4 percentage points from the fund’s current projection for an expansion of 8.2 percent this year, the organization said in a report released by its China office in Beijing on Monday last week.
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
China has threatened severe economic retaliation against Japan if Tokyo further restricts sales and servicing of chipmaking equipment to Chinese firms, complicating US-led efforts to cut the world’s second-largest economy off from advanced technology. Senior Chinese officials have repeatedly outlined that position in recent meetings with their Japanese counterparts, people familiar with the matter said. Toyota Motor Corp privately told officials in Tokyo that one specific fear in Japan is that Beijing could react to new semiconductor controls by cutting the country’s access to critical minerals essential for automotive production, the people said, declining to be named discussing private affairs. Toyota is among
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